Project 1001: Songs For Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra
I have got you, deep in the heart of me / So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me / I've got you under my skin
Frank Sinatra was the first modern pop superstar.1 He drew fanatical crowds of screaming fans (mostly female) before anybody had heard of Elvis and before the self-glossed King of Pop was born. I can tell you anecdotally that according to my mom the craze over Ole Blue Eyes was for real. There wasn’t a bigger entertainment star for her generation who grew up in the forties and early fifties. Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! is a marvelous collection of songs featuring a happy and ebullient Frank professing his love for the lady in his life. Hopefully that was Ava Gardner to whom he was married when he recorded this record. Maybe she didn’t like the songs so much as they were divorced the next year.
In any event, listening to these songs one can easily picture couples spinning around a dance floor in the boom years of America in the 1950s. Frank’s voice is in fine form. He didn’t earn the reputation as one of America’s finest ever singers for nothing. The orchestra expertly plays every piece to near perfection. Put this on for a terrific throwback experience to share with your best gal or guy and let the good love vibes flow over you. My rating:
This album defined Sinatra in his adult ''swinging'' mode and included what many regard as his greatest recorded performance: Cole Porter's ''I've Got You Under My Skin.'' 2
Longtime Sinatra collaborator remembered Songs for Swingin’ Lovers fondly and commented on how they tried to push music forward technically. “Rock was starting to be the big craze and everybody was in a panic about it. That record, we planned out as a showcase for stereo (and) the long-playing record (format). Hi-fi was the thing for music nuts. We set up the orchestra in the studio to show off the stereo effect - the brass on one side and reeds on the other side, and so forth. We went through a lot of trouble figuring out how the ears work.”3
AllMusic rated the album five starts noting:
“Sinatra is supremely confident throughout the album, singing with authority and joy. That joy is replicated in Riddle's arrangements, which manage to rethink these standards in fresh yet reverent ways…The great songs keep coming and the performances are all stellar, resulting in one of Sinatra's true classics.”4
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Will Fulford-Jones wrote:
“Sinatra never sounded more at ease, breezing giddily around (standards) as though it is one long marriage proposal…But it would all be wasted without (Nelson) Riddle’s glorious scoring. Legend has it that his unsurpassable arrangement for “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” hurriedly completed the night before the session, was greeted with spontaneous applause by the musicians who played it on January 12, 1956.
The resulting album is the closest any artist has come to defining the Great American Songbook. However, keen-eyed students of pop music may also notice the symmetry in the 15-cut, 45-minute track listing. Truly, the art of the three-minute pop song begins and ends here.”5
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
Prime Playlist: 238. Songs For Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra
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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: n/a
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: Gold | June 21, 19626
Released on March 5, 1956. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “Rock and Roll Waltz” by Kay Starr with Hugo Winterhalter's Orchestra and Chorus7
• Number one album: Oklahoma Sound Track8
• Number one movie: Picnic by Joshua Logan9
• Most watched TV programs: The $64,000 Question, I Love Lucy, Ed Sullivan Show, Disneyland, The Jack Benny Show, December Bride, You Bet Your Life, Dragnet, The Millionaire, I’ve Got A Secret, General Electric Theater10
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor11
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: The Search for Bridey Murphy by Morey Bernstein12
Sport
• Mar 3 3rd ACC Men's Basketball Tournament: NC State beats Wake Forest, 76-64.
• Mar 11 LPGA Titleholders Championship Women's Golf, Augusta CC: Louise Suggs wins her 3rd Titleholders title by 1 stroke from Patty Berg.
• Mar 14 50-year-old baseball pitching star Satchel Paige signs a contract to play for and manage the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro National League.13
Notable Births
• Mar 1 Timothy Daly, American actor (Joe-Wings, Diner, Made in Heaven), born in Sufferin, New York.
• Mar 2 John Cowsill, American rock drummer (The Cowsills - "We Can Fly"; Beach Boys, 2000-present), born in Newport, Rhode Island.
• Mar 7 Bryan Cranston, American actor (Breaking Bad, Malcolm in the Middle), born in Canoga Park, California.14
Historical Events
• Mar 2 French-Moroccan Agreement signed in Paris rescinds the Treaty of Fez, declaring independence of Morocco from France.
• Mar 20 Tunisia gains independence from France when the Protocol agreement signed between the two countries.
• Mar 20 Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp.15
Notable Deaths
• Mar 16 Joseph John Richards, American composer, dies at 77.
• Mar 17 Fred Allen, American comedian (Fred Allen Radio Show), dies of a heart attack at 61.
• Mar 17 Irène Joliot-Curie, French chemist and physicist (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1935) and daughter of Marie Curie, dies of leukemia at 58.16
Ibid.
Hajdu, David, Love for Sale: Pop Music in America, pp 30-31.
Fulford-Jones, Will, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Fifth printing, ed. by Robert Dimmery p. 30.
Ibid.